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| 95 Theses, October 31, 1517 |
...Another expression of our sinfulness emerges in our resentment
at the very fact of it. We're quick to accuse God of being too tough on us, of
being too harsh. His standard is too hard. Why doesn't he just lighten up a
bit? I’ve long thought that Jesus’ words, “Be perfect as my heavenly Father is
perfect” (Matthew 5:48), read in isolation from the good news, constitute the
scariest verse in the Bible. Martin Luther came to the place where he admitted
that he hated God for his holy requirement of perfection from us. “This word is
too high and too hard that anyone should fulfill it,” he wrote.
This is proved, not merely by our
Lord's word, but by our own experience and feeling. Take any upright man or
woman. He will get along very nicely with those who do not provoke him, but let
someone proffer only the slightest irritation and he will flare up in anger, if
not against friends, then against enemies. Flesh and blood cannot rise above it.[1]
But that doesn't mean we don't keep trying to win God's favor by
our efforts. Luther told of his own desperate labors to appease God's wrath,
"I was a good monk, and I kept the rule of my order so strictly that I may
say that if ever a monk got to heaven by his monkery it was I. If I had kept on
any longer, I should have killed myself with vigils, prayers, reading, and
other work.”[2]
Only when we, like Luther, come to know how impossible it is for
us to keep God's law, how futile it is for us to think we can win God over by
our efforts, never mind how sincere or strenuous, will we be ready to hear the
good news.
As true as it is that "all have sinned and fall short of
the glory of God," Paul hastens to tell us in the next verse that
hopelessly unworthy sinners "are justified by his grace as a gift, through
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:23, 24)...
...The great champion of justification by faith alone, Martin
Luther, understood just how essential getting the distinction between law and
gospel is: “Whoever knows well this art of distinguishing between Law and
Gospel, him place at the head and call a doctor of Holy Scripture.”[1]
Why did Luther have such extravagant praise for preachers who
don’t make a mingle-mangle of law and gospel? I think it’s because he
understood the enormous damage done to the gospel by law-creep, when men allow
the slightest degree of law-keeping conditionality to creep into the message of
the gospel...
...Notice that the same words are being used, and it sounds pretty
good. But rearranging the order, even slightly, destroys the freedom of the
gospel. The operative word is “alone” and nudging the keystone of that word out
of place brings down the entire structure. For Luther the doctrine of
justification by faith alone was “the issue on which the church stands or
falls.” R. C. Sproul warns that there is a “full-scale assault” launched within
Protestant evangelicalism against the doctrine of justification by faith alone.
Without this doctrine, “the gospel is not merely compromised, it is lost
altogether.”[1]
...“It is just as impossible to separate faith and works,” wrote
Martin Luther, “as it is to separate heat and light from fire!” He called all
those who don’t believe and teach this “the greatest of fools!”[1] The instant we begin to
separate them, we inevitably make works a requirement, a condition, of faith.
Hence, Satan’s strategy is by all means to get us to separate faith and
works--and to preen ourselves for the wisdom of our new discovery—but he never
wants us to realize that we’ve become the greatest of fools...
...I doubt Luther would have thought a doctrine of temporary
forgiveness was anything like entering the gates of paradise, as he referred to
his conversion. Imagine Luther’s glee at the discovery: “At last, I get it.
Whatever else justification is, it is forgiveness, but only temporary
forgiveness. O the joy! My burden is lifted—sort of, at least for the moment.”
Temporary forgiveness would be more like having your head smashed in the gates
of paradise as they clanged shut.
Or imagine a hymn of praise to God about temporary forgiveness.
The cry of the five bleeding wounds of the Savior in Charles Wesley's hymn
would have to sound more like this: "Sort of forgive they cry, sort of
forgive they cry; maybe not let that sort of ransomed sinner die." I can’t
imagine a doctrine of temporary forgiveness warming anyone’s heart to praise.
Not only does it make for
ridiculously bad hymn poetry, such a declaration is devastating to the central
doctrine of justification by faith alone; if justification is about forgiveness
of sins and the Bible teaches that you can be justified and have forgiveness of
sins—and then lose or forfeit it, the entire structure of reformational
theology crumbles.
It is precisely here where the confessional
standards help Christians in every generation to continue to believe what
the Bible teaches and...
Families with kids will want to check out my second Mr Pipes volume, Mr Pipes and Psalms and Hymns of the Reformation; I wrote a fun chapter on Luther where Annie and Drew and Mr Pipes get locked in Coburg Castle for the night, where Luther had been sequestered during deliberations on the Augsburg Confession of Faith.
[1] Martin Luther, An Introduction to St. Paul's Letter to the Romans, (Erlangen:
Heyder and Zimmer, 1854), 125. Accessed on-line:
http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/luther-faith.txt
[1] R. C. Sproul, citing
Martin Luther, Molehills out of Mountains
(Stanford, Florida: Ligonier Ministries, May, 2010), 7.
[1] Martin Luther, Dr. Martin Luthers Sämmtliche Schriften, St. Louis ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing
House, N.D.), 9:802.
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